Nine Lives(56)

He paused and stroked his beard again. “Real Islam is a discipline,” he said. “It is not just about the promptings of the heart. There are rules and regulations that must be followed: how to eat, how to wash, even how to clip your moustache. The heart and ideas of love—these are all irrelevant if you fail to follow the rituals and practices commanded by the Holy Prophet.”

Saleemullah’s organisation, he said, ran 5,000 madrasas across Pakistan, and were in the process of opening a further 1,500 in Sindh. These figures seem to be just the tip of the iceberg. According to one recent study there are now twenty-seven times as many madrasas in Pakistan as there were in 1947: from 245 at Independence the number has shot up to over 8,000. Across Pakistan, the religious tenor has been correspondingly radicalised: the tolerant, Sufi-minded Barelvi form of Islam is now increasingly out of fashion, overtaken by the rise of the more hard-line and politicised Deobandi forms of Wahhabism, which many now see as an unstoppable force overwhelming the culture of the country.

“I am full of hope,” said Saleemullah. “Look what has happened in Bhit Shah. We have a large madrasa there and seven mosques in the control of the Deobandis. At first the people clung to shirk and resisted the truth. But slowly the children went back home and educated their parents. Now every day our strength is growing.”

I got up to leave. “Mark my words,” said Saleemullah as he showed me out, “a more extreme form of the Taliban is coming to Pakistan. Certainly there are many challenges. But the conditions in this country are so bad. The people are so desperate. They are fed up with the old ways and the decadence and corruption. They want radical change—a return to the Caliphate.”

“And what is your role in that?” I asked.

“Most of the work is being done by the government and the [intelligence] agencies. Whatever they say to the Americans, we know that really they are with us. But our role? That is to teach the people that only our Islamic system can provide the justice they seek. We are the only people giving the poor education. We give the knowledge that the Islamic groups in Pakistan are using to change this country forever.”

“And do you plan to take the battle to the shrine here?”

“For the time being we cannot challenge the people directly in shrines. We have no wish to invite trouble, or to fight. All we can do is to befriend people, tell them what is right and wrong, educate their children and slowly change their minds. If we can get children away from their homes to board here with us we can influence them more thoroughly. With education, we hope the appeal of shirk and Sufism will fade, and that there will be no need for punishment.”

“But if you get your Caliphate?”

“When the Caliphate comes,” he said, “yes, on that day there is no question. It will be our duty to destroy all the mazars and the dargahs [Sufi shrines]—starting with the one here in Sehwan.”



No one knows if the Sufis of Sindh can fend off the chill winds of Wahhabism that are currently blowing so strongly; but Lal Peri, for one, was certain that the mullahs would gain no following in Sehwan. To prove it, she said I should come and talk to her pir at his retreat in the desert. His name was Sain Fakir, and he was, she said, a great poet and scholar, who knew by heart the entire Risalo of Shah Abdul Latif. No one, she said, was a greater defender of the Sufis than he.

The following day, my last in Sehwan, I picked up Lal Peri at Lal Bagh at 7 a.m. She got into the car, her ta’wiz clanking and her club banging against the ceiling of the car. Then we drove out, past the belt of tombs, into the scrub beyond.

Three miles out of the town, we passed a placid blue lake, with egrets, kingfishers and flamingos nesting round the edge. A black swan flew overhead. Lal Peri pointed out some small thatched houseboats moored at the edge: “Those belong to the fishermen,” she said. “They are great devotees of Lal Shahbaz Qalander. They believe that it is he who provides them with their fish.”

From there we drove out into the open desert. To me, the dry ridges and arid scree-strewn scrub, bare of vegetation, were stark and lowering, but Lal Peri regarded it all with a sort of rapt veneration. I asked what she was looking at.

“Everywhere has its own beauty,” she said. “The sand, the foothills, the mountains in the distance: these are all different manifestations of God.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“Every place has the name of God in it. Each has its own meaning. God says in the Quran, ‘I have my signs everywhere: in the rocks, the trees and the landscape.’ But most people don’t realise these things are there.”